COLOPL, which recently announced the release of KAZUMA KANEKO’s Tsukuyomi for the Switch, reported on February 4 that it has let go of 104 full-time employees who agreed to buyouts. Interestingly, the number of people who applied for voluntary redundancy significantly exceeds the company’s initial downsizing target.
Back in November 2025, COLOPL announced that it would carry out a workforce reduction after recording continued losses in its core game business. While its Square Enix-published title Dragon Quest Walk continues to perform well in Japan, newer releases, like Tsukuyomi: The Divine Hunter and Isekai ∞ Isekai, failed to meet revenue targets. Coincidentally, it’s been announced that both games are scheduled to end services in April this year.
While it initially planned to let go of 70 employees, COLOPL ended up receiving 104 applications for its voluntary redundancy program. Employees who had agreed to leave the company officially resigned as of January 31, 2026, receiving outplacement support and special severance packages from COLOPL. As a result of this and other related expenses, the company has recorded an extraordinary loss of 273 million yen, or approximately $1.72 million USD.
COLOPL is one of several Japanese mobile game developers who have in recent years solicitated voluntary resignations to counter financial losses. Since this isn’t a case of one-sided layoffs, though, the method doesn’t always work out as planned by the employer. For example, Bleach: Brave Souls developer KLab did not manage to meet its downsizing target of 100 employees in 2025, gathering only 47 resignations.
